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A FASTIDIOUS PRISONER 



ALBERT E. WINSHIP. 



A REPLY TO 



COLD CHEER AT CAiMP MORTON." 

A work of fiction in the April Century. 



[ Reprinted from Boston Traveller, Cleveland Leader, Chicago 
Inter-Ocean, Indianapolis Jourttal, New Haven Paladium, and 
other journals in which it appeared simultaneously.] 



BOSTON : 

3 Somerset Street, 



" Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 
Ther you hev it plain and flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder * 

Than my Testyment fer that." 

Lowell. — The Biglow Papers. 

" The land that is not worth our death 
Is not worth living for." 

" In the good time coming 
Nations shall not quarrel." 

" War, that mad game the world so loves to play." 

" Thank God ! the fathers need not blush to own the 
sons to-day " ( 1861 ). 

" There was war in the skies ! " 

" At the wars, do as they do at wars." 

" War is as ancient as human nature." 

" Civil war is a hideous and repugnant thing." 

" Caesar's spirit raging for revenge." 

" Farwell ! Othello's occupation's gone." 

" Not one can choose his attitude of doing." 

" The worthy cause has triumphed." 

" The cruel war is over." 

" War wins an awful glory." 

" Hurrah ! sheathe your swords ! we have won ! we 
have won ! " 






J 

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"COLD CHEER" INDEED, 



A FASTIDIOUS REBEL PPvISONER OBJECTS 
TO YANKEE TREATMENT. 



He Complains that Camp Morton Lacked 
the Usual Comforts of Home. 



fROM luxurious apartments on Madison 
avenue, a professional gentleman, a 
Confederate soldier, a prisoner at Indian- 
apolis in 1864, writes a work of liction for 
the April Century^ under the title, " Cold 
Cheer at Camp Morton." 

Both the adjectives and illustrations are 
chosen for their effect, rather than for 
their relation to fact. If the article were 
sure to be carefully read, there would be 
no occasion to reply to it, for it furnishes 
its own internal evidence of unreliability. 
For twenty-five years the writer has 
undoubtedly been giving private rehearsals 



of prison experiences, enlarging upon 
them as his imagination broadened and 
intensified, until at last he has gone into 
print, more anxious to live up to his oral 
versions than to keep within the bounds of 
reason. Upon this theory only can one 
account for such a story. When the 
adjectives and the overstatements are 
eliminated, this recital of " Cold Cheer " is 
little more than a petulant complaint that 
as prisoners of war they were not feasted 
and feted as distinguished guests. All 
that we ask is that it be read with the 
distinct understanding that its author 
writes of war times ; that he was a prisoner 
of war, and was fed and clothed by the 
government. 

He makes four general charges : abusive 
treatment, cruelty, starvation, and freezing 
to death. He bases the charge of abusive 
treatment upon the fact that prisoners 
were sometimes struck because they would 
not cease talking when an officer was pass- 
ing. It is a matter of official report that 
it was practically impossible for an officer 
to go through the camp without being 



insulted. It was more difficult to disci- 
pline the prison in this regard than it was 
our own camp. The prisoners would 
stroll near the sentrj- and mutter epithets, 
for which, if spoken under other circum- 
stances, they would have been imme- 
diately chastised. I recall a Sunday when 
they were holding open-air services. The 
preacher, in a prolonged prayer, plied 
anathemas so "thick and fast,'' amid 
jubilant "x'Vmens," that I asked for 
authority to see that he ceased praying to 
he heard of men. This was not granted, 
and he continued to shout his abuse of 
the soldiers, officers, Yankee land, and the 
President. I never knew a case in which 
a man was slapped in the face for it, but I 
knew a thousand men who were ready for 
such a fray. I presume some men yielded 
.to the provocation when officers or visitors 
were insulted. Suffice it to say that the 
abuse was provoked. 

The charge of cruelty is broadly made. 
But the writer admits that the most bar- 
barous act of cruelty was perpetrated by 
himself. According to his story, there 



were some fellows among the prisoners 
who would eat from the hospital swill bar- 
rel. Patients were allowed some luxuries 
denied the other prisoners. Uneaten por- 
tions went into the swill. Finding a 
fellow who had yielded to this tempta- 
tion, Wyeth and a few companions 
ducked him head foremost in the hospital 
swill barrel. This was by far the most 
heartless and indecent thing ever done 
in the history of Camp Morton, and this 
Century article has revealed for the first 
time the name of one of the perpetrators 
of this outrage. It was " cold cheer," in- 
deed, for one prisoner. 

Here are some of the gravest charges 
of cruelty : — 

Arrived at Camp Morton at 10 o'clock 
P. M. in early October, where, " no pro- 
vision having been made for us, we slept, 
or tried to sleep, through the cold night in 
the open air upon the ground^ Well, 
well ! What did he expect ? Speak out, 
Grand Army boys, and recite tlie in- 
stances in which you have arrived at 
camp where no provision had been made 



for you. Did you ever sleep, or try to 
sleep, through an early October night in 
the open air upon the ground ? Why, 
you could fairly make his blood curdle by 
reciting your experiences ! 

He was taken with a chill in the morn- 
ing, could not be admitted to the hospital 
till two o'clock in the afternoon, and was 
given a bed upon which a man had died. 
This may be a strange experience for a 
Southern soldier, but it was common 
enough with the "boys in blue." The 
incoming of a large number of unexpected 
guests, who had not sent on notice of 
their physical condition, might naturally 
surprise a hospital ; and a few hours of 
waiting in the middle of the day by a 
person not wounded, who simply com- 
plained of a chill, will hardly be accepted 
as cruelty by the average Union soldier. 
Unfortunately, it was not the custom of 
the Union army to destroy the couches 
upon which men chanced to die. It is 
evident that the authorities did not realize 
what a fastidious youth they had on 
hand. 



The camp had been a fair ground, the 
stables of which were used as barracks. 
These were shingled, he admits, and did 
not leak, but there was no floor. This 
was a grave omission I It was simply 
cruel for the United States government 
not to floor the spare chamber in which it 
was entertaining distinguished- guests; but 
in that day the aesthetic nature was not 
developed in the ''wild and woolly West," 
as at present. The sides of the building 
were not clapboarded, but were battened, 
and on one occasion there was a draft. A 
careful examination of the official records 
shows that no complaint was ever made of 
this draft, so that the government is 
really not responsible for allowing such 
exposure. 

" The entrance was through a large 
barn door at each end." As there was an 
abundance of room to pass out and in, 
there could be no objection to this, except 
from the aesthetic standpoint. 

There were four tiers of bunks, the 
lowest one foot from the ground, the sec- 
ond three feet above that, and the third 



three feet higher. As this is precisely 
the height from the floor and the space 
allowed in a Pullman 'palace, car^ — for 
which we pay two dollars a night, — we 
incline to think this charge should be 
turned over to some modern reformatory 
society. 

"No straw for bedding." Come, "boys 
in blue," speak up. Aren't you ashamed 
to think of a " boy in gray " being forced 
to spend a night in a bunk without straw? 
Why didn't you share your luxurious bed- 
ding with this tender youth ? Let every- 
one who luxuriated on straw, feathers, or 
a hair mattress at once send a note of 
apology for such a lack of hospitality. I 
know one regiment, at least, which would 
have been willing to give him all the 
straw it ever had. 

" Each man was allowed but one 
blanket." Cruel boys ! why did you not 
give him some of your spare blankets? 
But possibly, like a regiment I knew, 
you had but one blanket each, which had 
to serve as bed and coverlet. 

" There were but four stoves to each 



\ 



10 

barrack." I have heard of barracks in 
which one would have been a luxury. To 
think that these guests had but four stoves 
is the depth of humiliation. T never heard 
anything like it. If he ivill go to Indian- 
apolis now^ he will stand a chance of a 
ivarmer reception. 

He paid fifteen cents for an ear of corn ! 
Now, I paid twenty-five centsfor an ear of 
corn, and was right glad to get it at that ; 
but that doesn't count, for I was a Union 
soldier, and was not expected to receive 
the same treatment as our guests. If Ave 
could find out who was so discourteous as 
to charge anything, we would punish him 
by some mild process. We could hardly 
have the heart to " duck him head-fore- 
most in a hospital swill barrel." 

" Our letters were scanned at the camp 
post-office." This is not an uncommon 
prison experience in times of peace, and 
needs no comment. 

" Jewelry was stolen from our mail." 
This was indeed cruel. It is too much to 
believe. If he can identify the wretch, 
we will try to have him court-martialled, 



11 



even at this late day, for it was a ''cruel " 
thing to steal jewelry from the mail of a 
pris(jner of war. There was never sirch a 
charge made regarding Andersonville, 
Libby, or Belle Isle. 

" We were forced to dig a ditch to pre- 
vent ourselves from escaping." I have no 
language with which to express my indig 
nation at such cruelty. We would have 
dug it ourselves, had we realized how it 
was going to sound twenty-five years 
later, when the Qentunj presented it in 
such " Cold Cheer." 

The fence was twenty feet high and 
smooth, and the sentries were upon the 
parapet outside, and the prisoners could 
only see their heads and shoulders. The 
lamps were so placed that the sentries 
could see the prisoners, but it was with 
difficulty that the prisoners could see the 
sentries, and their beats were so ar- 
ranged that there was never more than 150 
feet unguarded at one time. 

These are, indeed, grave charges. The 
fence ought not to have been more than 
six feet high, should not have been smooth. 



12 

and the sentries shonld certainly have had 
more than their head and sliouklers ex- 
posed. The lamps ought certainly to have 
been faced the other way, so that sentries 
could have been seen while they could 
not see. It would seem as though a hun- 
dred and fifty feet was as much unguarded 
parapet as could have been reasonably 
asked ; but, of course, that is a matter of 
taste. 

One man, havingsuccessfully scaled this 
smooth, twenty-foot fence, despite the 
lamp, wrote to his comrades that he was 
all right in Kentucky. This tempted 
seven others to try it. " Four brave 
fellows," of these seven, were captured, 
and they were placed with their backs 
against a tree, their arms extended above 
their heads, and there they had to stand 
through the night. He waxes eloquent 
upon this terrible cruelty. It was, indeed, 
unkind not to put them in bed and care- 
fully nurse them, so that they would have 
strength to make a successful break the 
next time. He describes in detail the 
chivalric way these "brave fellows" 



treated the sentry. Some forty picked 
men organized themselves for escape and 
made ladders, '■'■armed themselves with 
stones, pieces of ivood, and bottles,'" and 
'■'•made a rush, pelted the sentries, and the 
entire assaulting party gamed the outside. 
Some few men were recaptured, but the 
majority reached Canada or the South." 
I was on guard that night, and shall 
never forget our indignation that no 
punishment was meted out to the " brave 
fellows " of stone, ivood, and bottle fame 
who were recaptured. 

A detail composed of prisoners was 
selected to accompany the garbage wagon 
to some distant point outside the walls. 
Five persons at a preconcerted signal 
seized the two guards, disarmed them, and 
escaped. At another time two men " were 
mortally wounded by a ball, the assassin 
doing his work so well that the same ball 
passed through both bodies." Upon this 
he dwells with unusual bitterness. It 
was a "brave fellow " always who iArew 
stones, ivood, and bottles, who seized and 
bound the guard ; it was an assassin 



14 



always who objected to being bound. 

As to the general charge of starvation. 
He says they had daily a dish of vegetable 
soup, a loaf of bread, seven inches long 
and three and a half deep and wide, and a 
piece of meat.- On this diet, he says, 
multitudes starved to death, and were 
always so hungry that a rat or dog could 
not come within reach without being 
killed and eaten. There is no account- 
ing for taste. If a man with a full loaf 
of bread, a piece of meat, and a dish of 
vegetable soup desired rats and dogs for 
dessert, it is no concern of ours ; but 
when he says that men were starving to 
death upon such diet, we decline to 
revolutionize the history of a quarter of a 
centur}^ upon such testimony. 

The remaining charge is that multi- 
tudes froze to death. Not that they were 
cold or uncomfortable, but literally /ro^e 
to death. The camp was in a grove, and 
was inclosed by a close fence twenty feet 
high. They were all quartered in bar- 
racks ; each having four stoves ; each man 
with a blanket. He says that each four 



15 



men formed a combine, using one blanket 
under them and three over them, and then 
they froze to death! He saw eighteen 
frozen to death one morning ! I No imag- 
ination in this, of course. No enhirge- 
ment of the facts in twenty-five years ? 

That same night the sentry was walk- 
ing upon a bleak parapet, twenty feet in 
the air. In the howling wind, blinding- 
snow, or stinging cold, as the case might 
be, he had not a single blanket in that ex- 
posed place, and yet he never froze so 
much as an ear. 

There used to be some tall swearing 
done by the sentries on those nights, as, 
in their loneliness, they braved the 
weather, while the prisoners were com 
fortably freezing to death, shut in by the 
high fence, amply protected by the bar 
racks, with four stoves, and under three 
blankets. 

If anybody cares to believe that eigh 
teen prisoners froze to death under these 
circumstances, he is welcome to his faith 
in the " Cold Cheer " story. We have no 
interest in the opinion of any man who 



16 

can read tliat article and believe that 
there was much unjustifiable abuse or 
serious cruelty, who can believe that one 
man ever starved or froze to death. In 
one respect "• Cold Cheer " is cheering. 
What a world of possibilities it opens up 
to the Union soldiers. All that is needed 
is a few years for the play of the imagina- 
tion to do its perfect work, as it has done 
in the case of the author of " Cold Cheer." 
Thus much for the work of fiction as 
illuminated in the Century. Now a word 
as to the facts. General Henry B. Car- 
rington of the regular army, a graduate 
of Yale, a scholarly gentleman, a thor- 
ough business man, was in command 
of the departjuent of Indiana, and de- 
voted himself faithfully and conscien- 
tiously to making Camp Mortoii a model 
prison camp, and his pride in his charge, 
if nothing else, would have prompted 
hira to keep it in first-class condition, for 
it was constantly visited by the digni- 
taries. General Alvin P. Hovey, in an 
official report, September 4, 1865, says : 
" I repeatedly, with pride, conducted visi- 



17 



tors to Camp Morton to show the military 
discipline and the order and neatness that 
prevailed throughout the barracks and 
prison." It was scrupulously neat and 
every way comfortable for army life, but 
it may seem very cruel and non-aesthetic 
and insufficient to the gentleman, in his 
spacious Madison - avenue apartments. 
Why, it seems cruel to some of the Union 
soldiers to think of having but thirteen 
dollars a month for self and home. 

General Carrington, in a detailed official 
report of July 2, 1866, says : " In 1863-4, 
when daily visits to every camp were nec- 
essary, this duty was of the most exacting 
kind. More than eleven thousand men 
were in camp at one time. They had to 
be fed and mainly clothed." From copies 
of his official correspondence at the time, 
it appears the barracks used by prisoners 
were first used by our own troops. When 
the prisoners arrived, these barracks icere 
given to the prisoners, and the Union sol- 
diers occupied tents and temporary sheds. 
The barracks occupied by the prisoners — 
*'barn doors"' and all — were every way 



• 18 

the same as those occupied by the Union 
soldiers. 

The only instance in which there was 
any uncleanliness or raggedness was at 
the time of an unusual influx of prisoners 
after the fall of Donaldson. The men 
were in a terrible condition — broken 
down physically, ragged, uncleanly, pale, 
hungry, even emaciated. The death rate 
following their arrival was large, due 
partly to previous starvation. The atten- 
tion given to their comfort and health by 
the officers and troops was as great as it 
could have been for the " boys in blue. " 
Hospital tents were pitched, and, as by 
magic, plastered buildings were erected 
for them. 

There was never a day, even under the 
greatest pressure, that the food was not 
Avholesome and of full quantity. I well 
remember the attention shown Colonel 
Morgan and his party. They requested 
to be by themselves, and were given tents 
with flies, and, at their request, oyster 
stew was furnished for supper upon the 
evening of their arrival. The prisoners 



19 



always had as good food as our troops, 
slightly lighter in quantit}', because they 
did no duty. 

I was at Camp Morton a few months 
since. It is a fair grcumd once more. 
Beautiful horses are stabled there. Each 
has corn, for which he does not pay fifteen 
cents an ear : each has one blanket, and 
straw upon which to lie. There are no 
end "barndoors" to his barracks; there 
is no draft, and there is a floor to his spare 
chamber. He does not have the mail in- 
spected, and no jewelry is ever witldield. 
His camp is kept scrupulously neat, and 
he never has to go with the garbage wag- 
on. He never eats rats or dogs, and is 
never ducked head foremost in the hos- 
pital swill barrel. 

Looking upon these isleek animals, 1 
said, " What a contrast between the way 
these dumb animals are housed, fed, and 
petted and the way the Union soldiers 
lived!" It was a crnel war, but we all 
fared well for army life, and the prisoners 
at Camp Morton fared luxuriously for 
prisoners of war. 



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